Tuesday, March 20, 2007

I see "Download to Zune" buttons sprinkled around the podcast pages here at NPR.org. Are these paid for by Microsoft? I would assume they are, since no other hardware player is specifically promoted in the same way.

I realize that other buttons on the podcast pages either contain or link to commercial sites, such as iTunes or My Yahoo!, but I am under the impression that those were chosen as part of the site's basic functionality, and were more of an editorial or technical decision. The Zune buttons appear to merely be a financial decision.

If NPR is in fact being compensated by Microsoft to promote the Zune in this way, I would prefer that this was identified as advertising. It may be inelegant to put that identification right next to the Zune button - but it could be placed further down on the page. Something like "Zune(TM) download links underwritten by Microsoft." would be fine.